Injustice:

Lately I have been spending a lot of time reading the book of Jeremiah, and contemplating what God truly asks of us who are disciples of Jesus the Christ. Because I have been incredibly burdened by my lack of service to God. And one common thing that God keeps saying all throughout His word, is that the believer is to fight on behalf of the oppressed. To oppose injustice, and help the poor.

January 1st marked the launch of the Passion Conference. A meeting together of young believers to encourage them to be young leaders. And at this conference they addressed the issue that there are OVER 27 MILLION slaves worldwide today. More slaves on earth than there has EVER been in History.

Many of these slaves are women being trafficked as sex slaves, exploited for money and pleasure. Treated like rags, as if they are not even human, as if they have NO value. And if they try to fight their captures, they are raped repeatedly. They are paid very little, and then are forced TO PAY their slave "owners," which then makes them debtors to these slave drivers! They are in a constant trap that is impossible to get out of, unless an outer force intervenes!
But many of the local governments are being paid by these brothels, and when a slave escapes and runs to the local police to help, they unknowingly are running straight to the men that PROTECT the sex trade!! They are forced to have sex with clients and to act as if they enjoy it, or else they are raped and beaten, many either die or kill themselves due to such abuse.

"She was only eight when they threw her in the trade
Abused in her youth now a slave of this rape
Uncle prostitutes the niece before she got through puberty
And its hard for her to pray 'cause she's dropping to her knees for a priest
Geez, the cross that he wears is the cross that she bears
Pedophiles is what Im mad about."--Swoope On High Society's "Mad About"

Many of the other slaves work in some of your favorite companies factories.

Hershey's Chocolate, Forever 21, Victoria's Secret, Nike, Aeropostale, Toys R' Us, Urban Outfitters, Nokia, KYE (A manufacturer for Xbox, and HP) and Macintosh, among many, many others.

These companies give people jobs paying them around 30-50 cents a day, barely enough for food, and a small hut. Some companies force their employees to pay a months worth of pay as a deposit, and if they quit before having worked a full year, they don't get that deposit back.
They are forced to meet a certain quota, and if they do not they are physically punished. Many of these slaves are women, and they are sexually harassed at the work place by their supervisors.
There was one case where at a Nike factory some women came in to work on National Women's day, and they did not have shoes on that met the dress code, and they were forced to stand out in the hot sun for 2 hours.
Many instances have been recorded where women have fainted on site, some have even died because they are not given medical attention.
These factories many times have employees working around highly toxic chemicals with no protection. And there is normally only one doctor, and few nurses to service any where around 60,000 employees.
These employees are not allowed sick days, and if they file a complaint about the conditions or abuse, they are fired!
Nike has ADMITTED to being aware of such abuse, and their "solution" was to post a list of rights that each employee gets on to a wall in the factory. But most times these rules are rewritten by the factories so as to give the employees a false idea of what they deserve.
Companies (Nike in particular) claim to be helping the local economy, by moving in until the local businesses can support itself. When in fact, they move to a new area as soon as the employees start asking for better and more reasonable pay.

There is also another type of slave trade, that is not brought up often. And that is the trade that is often called "The Trap." It is the hood, the use and selling of drugs in the inner city.
How it starts for the individual, is that he grows up without his father around, and he sees his mother struggling to provide for himself and his younger siblings. Or worse, his mother is always drunk and high off of drugs. So he goes out, and ends up getting discipled by a drug dealer that grew up just like him, in how to hit the streets with a 9 millimeter and to sell drugs. So he uses that money to pay for his families expenses. But he makes enemies, and he eventually gets shot, and if he has children, the cycle starts all over again! Literally, life expectancy in some neighborhoods is 15 years old for males. But they don't know any better! School teachers teach them that their only options are to get famous, or to go to jail, or to die. They tell them that they are worthless and will be a failure in life. It's an endless cycle. It's ironic that they call it the trap!


"The blood, the murder, the carnage, we see it all

From afar, on our DVR's, Simply too busy to be involved,
It ain't our problem unless it's an easy solve,
The hands and feet of Christ, is it lies?
Or do our busy lives tell us not to sympathize
The social ears of the world should make us sick inside
The big supply of evil should not desensitize
If they hungry and we don't feed em',
Closet full of clothes, when they cold, need em'
What we do for the least of, we do the same thing to Jesus
I know you see Him in your vision, but for intervention,
You too busy with your genders and religion,
Is it pride, racism, or arrogance,
That let's em' die waitin' for a good american?..."

"Blood in the streets, we turn blind eyes

Is it murder, if we watch them die?
Blood on our hands, and we don't care why
We turn blind eyes, 'till we in the fight."--Swoope & Christon Gray, Blind Eyes (The Good American).
Now, if you are like me, you are probably at this point wondering, what can we do to help?

First, the biggest issue is that people are ignorant! They don't know about these issues, and when they do, they don't want to. Why? Because hearing this means when you buy those dope kicks, you are supporting a company that exploits humans. We have got to stop making excuses about these issues like "there's hardly a company out there that DOESN'T use slaves..."
We have got to realize that this is injustice, and we MUST do something about it.
We can not say that this is an unbeatable enemy. As soon as we say that, it becomes true.

Second, get educated about these issues! Find out about this injustice. You can not fight an enemy you don't know exists. Study up, and let your heart be broken.

Third, drop your pride! Big deal if you can't eat your favorite candy, or rock your favorite threads! Stand against injustice! Life is not about you!

I have been thinking lately, about the luxury I live in. I will be honest, sometimes I hate going to the grocery store, because I see people, and I can see poverty in their eyes. It's embarrassing.
So, I got to think about my life, and I asked myself why God chose to place me in America, in a well off home, rather then in the hood with an absent or dead father and wasted mom. Or in a third world country, working in one of these factories myself.
My conclusion? God did not give me this life and excess so that I could flaunt what I have and live like a king. But rather that I could give away all my excess and help hope those in need, fighting for the oppressed, and to live like a King.

Don't over look this issue. Fight. If you want a certain type of clothing, learn how to make it if you have to! Live like Royalty did.

Thanks for reading,

John Mark,

From the hand of a failure:

I don't really know how to start this. But I guess the only fair way to start this is with a warning.

For any and all who know me, you know that writing is my outlet. I get stuff out by writing it. I am extremely expressive. I have always been in love with words. So I bleed on to paper. Pen and paper knows more about me than any one or anything; save Christ. When I am angry, depressed, sad, happy, or whatever, I can only accurately express it through words. And so here I am, once again cutting a vein, and bleeding out what's in. As I proceed, I don't believe, or intend this, to in any way, be something that that will boost my reputation. On the contrary, I intend this entirely to destroy me. To destroy my reputation, every rumor or thought, that John Mark Allen is a great man. Or that he is any good representation of Christ or Christianity.

Over the past week or two. I have been in a dry spot in life. I felt extremely distant from God. I couldn't feel Him, my prayers hit the ceiling and then fell back, and my Bible felt empty and lifeless. And this, for me, was terribly frustrating.
In this time, I began to fall. You see, whenever I begin to feel depressed, the biggest struggle I have is with lust. So first my thoughts fell. And this eventually led to porn.
Oh if mere words could express how much I abhor my existance. This, would indeed deem me a hypocrite due to all that I have taught. To all that I have told and taught that lust is equivalent to rape, to all the times I have claimed to respect and treasure women. All the times I have claimed that they are worth more than a tool for man's lust (which indeed they are, my actions do not take away from their worth, merely my view of it). I hate it. I hate not just my actions, but my being. I, of all people, knew better.
Then, to my humiliation, I recall back several months ago, where in words of anger I expressed with my brother, that I would not fall in that temptation. Ha.

Anger. I claim it to be my enemy but I call on him frequently as if he were a friend.
Recently, I have been entirely too quick to get angry and to snap off at my family. I became easily frustrated, annoyed and irritable to any and all around me. This had been going on for several weeks.

I honestly believe that anger, and lust even, are rooted by pride. Pride that says, I am good enough, I have the right, to be angry. I have the right to be angry because they had the audacity to oppose me. I have the right because I am me. Anger is selfcentered about what I want. It is rooted by pride.
Lust is as well. In that the entire time that I was falling into the hands of that temptation, I never stopped it in order to consider how degrading it was to women in general. My thoughts fell soley onto me. Getting momentary pleasure for me. Not considering that this would affect the way I view all women, and how it could affect the way I treat them. No, it all revolved around me.

Pride. I am an extremely prideful and self absorbed individual. If the above does not convince you, let me continue.
I love looking at myself. Seriously. My family can attest to the fact, that even if I was blind, I could locate a mirror in order to admire myself.
I love attention. Goodness, I know how to draw attention to myself. And I do it at times. I have even used my beliefs at times, in subtle ways, to get attention to myself. To impress people.
The Bible would describe this as robbing God of His glory.
Glorifying myself. Seeking praise for myself. Seeking to have my name known. Seeking fame for myself.

Oh goodness. I am a mess. I don't know what else to write, in this confession. I have written all that I can rememeber.
Please do not read this and assume that I am trying, in any way, to build myself up (though honestly, if you think that, I have no idea how or why). There is no pride in what I have done. Nothing noble or praiseworthy. It is all filthy and disgusting. And I thoroughly hate it. And would much rather not to have written this. But I am bound by conviction, as will be explained.

My entire point in writing this out, was not to glorify myself as a great Christian, because I have the guts to confess this on the internet. I don't want any of you to know any of this about me. I would rather you think that I have never fallen to these sins. I would rather be esteemed well.

My point was to have each and all who read this, to be thoroughly disgusted with me. To be appalled that John Mark would sin like this. Because I know my reputation among you, it is a good one. I want you to see me as a failure. As a waste. As Filth. And then I Want you to look at Christ. I know that it is hard to believe in all of this that Christ loved me enough to save me. He didn't suddenly decide to love me when I cleaned up. Or else He would obviously hate me. Rather, He knew about all this junk. He knew about all of my sins, and when I was His enemy He died for me. He saved me. He loved me. I want you to see His grace! I want you to see Him! I want to be disgusting to you, so that Christ will be shown so much more glorious to you all! Because in this, He becomes greater, and I become less. Look to Jesus. Not to me. Because I am worthy of wrath. He alone is good in me.

I honestly believe that God led me into that temptation in order that I may fall. So that I would realize my worthlessness, in order to lead me to be humble before my God, and not proud. God was very gracious to me, in that, this sin was all that He required I go through, in order to bring me low.

I apologize to you all, for how I have failed you as one trying to lead.


He MUST become greater, and I MUST become less.

The Gift Of A Father:

Recently I have been thinking much on the topic of Fatherhood, and Manhood.
I am around people all the time that come from backgrounds that, unlike mine, the Father is in one way or another, absent in their life. And then I see the flip side, where people do have a Father; and they treat him like dirt. Are you kidding me?

From my Background, I live without a Mother, so the Preciousness of a Parent is well known to me. And I also see the impact of the Lack of a Father figure in someone's life.

All this to say, if you do have a Father that Loves you, and has got your back. Be thankful. I don't care if you are upset. Be incredibly thankful.

Just some thoughts,

John Mark,